by Hal Annas
Rahn Buskner outlined his strategy: “We cut the spacelane here.” He tapped the cosmograph. “The bulk of Earth’s fleet is about here.” He pointed to the center of a vast triangle expressed by Sol, SYZ and Eg. “It is moving to support the Patrol and intercepts us. As we break through, Moxol, with the second armada, will avoid a direct clash with the fleet, sweep round it and drive on Mallika and the outer planets in SYZ. By moving rapidly he can threaten Delos before great strength opposes him.”
The heads of the ring of hard-bitten Novakkan commanders nodded in agreement. Moxol remained quiet, unmoving.
“We will totally destroy the Patrol with our first thrust,” Rahn Buskner went on. “With the bulk of our strength, I will sweep round the other side of the fleet and drive on Earth. Is it clear?”
A veteran commander said, “The fleet commanders will have to decide whether to send their main strength toward SYZ or Sol. There will be a period of delay and possibly confusion. The plan will succeed.”
“Then,” Rahn Buskner added, “when Moxol begins to feel their pressure from space, he will break off from the SYZ System and move to the center of the triangle. At that point he can turn to support me, as I withdraw from the Solar System, or turn again to aid our forces holding the Eg System. It will depend on where the Earthmen make their first counterthrust.”
It was typical Novakkan strategy, calling for speed, deception, anticipation of the enemy’s reaction, and suddenness in striking. There was no reason to believe it wouldn’t succeed. And it did, in part.
Resistance in the spaceline was greater than expected. The Patrol, supported by heavy elements of the SYZ fleet, fought viciously. It was hopelessly outnumbered, and when Rahn Buskner had nearly completed his maneuver, and got the bulk of the Patrol between his armada and Moxol, it looked as if the Patrol would be totally crushed. And it would have—but for the energy and enterprise of a minor segment of Patrol ships. They adopted Novakkan tactics of lateral motion and, fighting like demons, slipped out of the pincer before it had completely closed.
The raiders identified the commander who had made the successful maneuver and passed his name from ship to ship. Moxol didn’t know it then, but that same Earthman was destined soon to command the SYZ fleet, and later the combined Earth forces. His name was Christopher Darby. And while few knew it, he had fought Novakkans many times in this same area of space. It had been his ship in fact that had shot down Moxol’s raider when he returned to Unor from Dexbo.
Timing his move on SYZ, he struck Nobra first. It was not as important as Delos or even Mallika, but was on this side of the star at this season. It was easily overrun, and he left a force to spread terror and destroy its industries, and with the main units moved round the sun and struck Mallika.
In this he suffered personally. Half Earthman, he was not able to endure as much heat as the true Novakkan. But Novakkan strategy invariably called for using to advantage this peculiar quality. He lay his course close to the brilliant sun, whose intensity was twice that of Sol, and saved nineteen hours. There was another advantage. No ship manned by Earthmen could follow that close to a star.
But he suffered. As his moisture dehydrated his body shrank and his muscles became as hard as stone. On edge, he struck Mallika with viciousness he had never exhibited before. Coming in, out of the sun, he crushed its few defending ships, tore its ground batteries asunder, took possession of half the giant planet, and began laying waste its industries.
All armed forces that escaped fled to Delos, the next outer planet, and reports came that that planet, mustering shops and armed men from its neighbor, Plasgo, was preparing a mighty defense. It was the most important planet in the system, but he had no intention of attacking it. Before he could break through and seize a foothold, he knew, units of the fleet would be at his back.
By posing a threat, he had accomplished his mission. As the fleet came to the rescue, his forces on Nobra would move close to the star, and as the fleet came on round to Mallika he would quickly withdraw between it and the sun and head on out to the center of the triangle.
It had been finely timed and he received constant reports of the fleet’s movement.
And it would’ve worked that way but for the girl of midnight eyes and hair.
When it came time to withdraw he received word that a startlingly beautiful young woman, nearly as dark as a Novakkan in features, had killed a raider and intimidated others by demanding to be brought to him.
Moved by her courage, and feeling that her fierce spirit would interest him, the raiders agreed to bring her.
He couldn’t forbid them because they had given their word, and they would rather die than break it.
She was about fifteen, still growing, but looked every inch a woman. In her proud features was an air of defiance that compelled respect.
No creature in Moxol’s memory had ever before caused him to have difficulty with his breathing—merely by being in his presence.
CHAPTER THREE
“EVELA Descott,” the Novakkan told him. “Claims she knows you personally.”
Moxol motioned the other to leave him alone with the girl.
She was gowned in something as colorless as crystal except where her flesh pressed against it. At the swells of her proud young breasts and along the curves of her hips and thighs the garment blushed crimson. Where it touched more lightly at her slender waist it was merely pink, and where it flared away from her lower legs it had no color whatever, appeared as water in motion.
All semblance of childish stubbornness as he remembered it aboard the Mallikan cruiser and later aboard the raider, had vanished. But the pride remained and so had her scorn for what she had termed bloody pirates.
He could see it in her eyes, and as she moved close and lifted sensitive hands to touch his cheeks a dark suspicion rose in his body.
She pressed against him, the warmth of her tender flesh coming through her garment and into his naked upper body which had been made sensitive by dehydration. Her hands came over his shoulders and linked themselves at the back of his neck. Her whole weight fell on him in her effort to pull his face down to hers.
He remained rigid, every nerve keyed for the move he expected, the move that would give him an excuse to break her neck. He had never forgotten a solitary moment of their time together aboard the cruiser and aboard the raider. And the words of the Dexbo witch came back, rasping in his ears.
But the deadly move didn’t come. Instead, the subtle warmth of her, the warm woman scent, the faint trembling, the almost imperceptible movement of her breasts as she breathed deeply, got to him, stirred his blood, made his senses whirl, and brought a compelling urge to put his arms about that slender body and forget the task ahead.
And before him lay the report, and on the visicom sounded the warning, that the fleet was approaching a ninety degree angle to the sun, and that if his raiders would escape without a clash and heavy losses, if they should reach the center of the triangle at the crucial moment, and in full strength, they must start now.
The soft young body pressed closer, molded to his; the warm round arms clung, sought to bring his head down or lift her own. Her voice was soft, purring, with a faint tremolo of emotion’.
“Moxol! Moxol! I’ve dreamed that you would come.”
But he had seen the look in her eyes.
And he remembered that she’d sworn to open his throat with her teeth and boil his heart in poison.
She was capable of far more. She was capable, it suddenly dawned, of giving her body arid holding him here until the fleet was on him.
He tore her arms from about his neck and flung her from him. He opened the intercom and snapped, “Take this wench out of here.”
She crept back. Tears were in her eyes. Her whole body trembled. “Moxol,” she breathed. “I hate everything Novakkan, but I love you. I’ve never forgotten; I never will forget—”
As she broke off it came to him that she might be remembering the things he remembered.
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br /> It could be that way, he knew. Earthgirls were taught to hate Novakkans. They were pictured as monsters, the scourge of the universe.
“I can’t go on living here,” she said. “When word went round that I’d been a captive of Novakkans I became an outcast. But for the wealth I brought I might’ve perished. Take me with you. Take me away, anywhere. Keep me as a slave. But let me go with you.”
The visicom crackled, “Enemy ships parsing ninety degree angle, going into battle formation. Our units asking for orders. They don’t want to get caught sitting.”
The door opened. A green-tinged giant entered, seized the arm of the girl.
“Moxol!” she screamed. “Don’t send me back. They’ll call it collaboration. They’ll drag me through the streets by my hair. Moxol! Moxol!”
As the door slammed and shut out her screams, a dull ache rose in his body, forced its way into his throat. His voice was hoarse as he growled into the visicom, “Moxol to Relay. All ships.”
“Relay to Moxol,” the voice came back. “All ships.”
“Moxol to all commanders. Observe order Green dux. Blue scrolo.”
The aching still rose in his body. It was connected with thoughts of the girl. He knew he had to put them aside and concentrate on his task. Thousands of lives depended on him. The life of a solitary Earthgirl should mean nothing. But she persisted in his thoughts. The faint scent of her was still here. He imagined he could still feel her warmth.
Then, remembering the dehydration that was to come, he tilted a plastic container and drank half a gallon of water.
He forced himself to compute his losses and measure them against the damage that had been done to the Earthmen. They had been less than one per cent; he had laid in ruin the industries of two planets and demoralized their populations. All this in addition to the enemy ships he had destroyed.
He couldn’t hope to continue with this success. The Earthmen had been taken by surprise. They would strike back, and hard. Unlike other races, they never avoided battle with the raiders.
As the heat rose, as the moisture from his body drenched his garments, which consisted of a girdle six inches wide at his hips, from which hung his blade and photon gun, and a skirt that fell over his thighs, which could be torn off and wrapped around his arm as a shield to turn a blade or even stop certain minor rays, he grow more and more irritable.
The green-tinged men didn’t mind the heat, but when the temperature got above a hundred seventy degrees Fahrenheit his Earth blood began to show and he had to fight the agony every moment to prove that he was Novakkan enough to endure and command an armada.
It was when he felt he would collapse that the door opened and a green-tinged man dropped the limp body of the girl at his feet.
“Found her staggering along the passage,” he said.
Moxol forgot his own suffering. “A spacesuit,” he roared. “Get her into it. Cram it full of ice.”
As the Novakkan moved to obey, Moxol made hasty calculations. No Earthling could survive in this heat. And it hadn’t reached its full extent. The ice would help, but it would melt in minutes. The increase in atmospheric pressure, which had been pushed up to thirty pounds to the square inch, would keep her blood from boiling even if the temperature went above two hundred. But she would not survive. He would barely survive himself.
He tried to tell himself that the life of one Earthgirl didn’t matter; what mattered was the security of his armada.
She had no business here anyway. He’d ordered her put off the ship. He was too near collapse to begin an investigation.
Snapping on the visicom, he said, “Moxol to Relay. Echelons One, Two, Three.”
“Relay to Moxol. One, Two, Three.”
“Moxol to all commanders from One to Three. Laterals. Outward, Battle formation. Moxol to Relay, Four through Ten.”
“Four through Ten.”
“Moxol to commanders Four to Ten. Laterals. Outward. Battle formation behind One, Two and Three. Moxol to Relay. Eleven through Thirty.”
“Eleven through Thirty.”
“Commanders all, laterals outward, battle formation, pull in all elements behind you through seven hundred. Acknowledge through Relay. Blue scrolo.”
The girl was clothed in a spacesuit packed with ice. A dozen green-tinged giants came into the room, took up positions at visicoms, at the intercom, at the channels to the turrets. Bells rang sounding stations. The roaring voices of subcommanders came through the intercom. The gravity shifted. Lights flashed to show the laterals had been cut in. The ship was again a beehive of activity.
Moxol felt better. The temperature was dropping. The tension building up around him got into his blood. He knew that every green-tinged giant in the armada had welcomed the new orders. Not a man among them that wouldn’t rather fight than avoid an enemy.
Reports began pouring in. A man at a visicom turned and said, “All ships now moving laterally. The enemy has taken no notice as yet. Between him and the sun, we don’t show on his instruments clearly.”
Moxol snapped, “Double lateral velocity. Reduce forward velocity to half. The enemy is not expecting us to come out and fight.”
The order was passed through the visicoms in code, bypassing Relay. It told the commanders in the spearhead to hold their fire until the thirtieth echelon was in range.
For the next seven hours Moxol hardly thought of the girl. On his instruments the position of every ship in the armada was calculated, and a new dot appeared each time in the depth of a screen to give him a tri-dimensional view. The position of the enemy was charted by area.
They struck him on the flank in less than three hours after they began moving laterally. They tore a hole in his flank, sweeping the cosmos clean of over a hundred ships in the first hour of fighting. Then, as they struck his heavier elements, they began to suffer losses. But moving along the array of ships that stretched for thousands of miles, and finding them not wholly prepared for attack from the direction of the sun, the raiders estimated they accounted for better than eight to one.
In the overall strategy which took into account three armadas and the combined Earth forces, he knew, his move would be called harassing tactics. But, in another sense, it was a signal victory. It would take time for the fleet to regroup and deploy, and at the moment the planet Havelon floated beneath him unprotected.
He ordered the strike.
Relay monitors unscrambled reports from Delos telling of Rahn Buskner breaking through the rings of defense about Earth. He couldn’t depend on such reports and so ordered Relay to break long-range silence and use the Strak, which functioned on the principle of an energy field and instead of following, in waves, the curvature of space sent its impulses straight through.
Within twelve hours he learned that Rahn Buskner had seized strategic points on the home planet and that his mother, Aleta, had been found unharmed.
This spurred the raiders on as they spread ruin and terror on Havelon, but other and vital questions came up. At no time had they encountered the full might of the Earth fleet. Its heavier elements averaged a mile and an eighth in length and weighed more than a megaton. Their armor and armaments where greater than those of the heaviest raider. They were a trifle slow.
The fleet had been in the center of the triangle. It had split up as he and Rahn Buskner maneuvered to go round it. In the following series of actions Relay had lost track of it. He didn’t know at the moment where the bulk of the Earth fleet was.
But he had reports that the Patrol was being reorganized between here and the Eg System and bolstered with heavy units of the SYZ fleet that had seen action in the spacelane and in a premature effort to halt the third armada.
The question was which way would it move. And where was the bulk of the Earth fleet?
The answers were vital. They meant success or defeat, life or death.
But success had attended him here. And though his commanders were jubilant, insisting that he was a tactician equal to Rahn Buskner, he couldn
’t deceive himself. He had struck outward from the sun only to keep the girl from dying.
She was still weak, but recovering. He had ordered her placed in a compartment next to his. There was no time to give her attention, and Novakkan doctors were not notably successful in treating Earthlings. Most of the raiders shipped Unorian, Eg, Golgon, and even Earth doctors, but he had none aboard.
He ordered the raiders to find the best doctor on Havelon and put him aboard at knife point.
Later he wasn’t certain he had done the right thing. The man was older than he, but still young, strong and handsome. And he had an air of sophistication, which meant that he’d received his education on Earth.
The dark girl was an Earthling.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE pressure of time weighed heavily. His orders were to be near the center of the triangle when Rahn Buskner began to withdraw from Earth. It was hard to keep the raiders under control on a planet where loot and women were in abundance. There were delays.
To prove that his orders for haste meant what they said, it was necessary to order half a hundred dismembered. It was also necessary to skin alive those in Relay responsible for losing track of the Earth fleet.
There was one other thing that bothered him. The SYZ commander who had carried off Aleta from Unor had not yet been taken. Rahn Buskner would never be satisfied without the blood of that man and his corpse shackled to the bow of his ship. Orders were to take him. And every green-tinged giant knew that full Novakkan vengeance would not have been exacted until that man died most horribly.
He put the thoughts aside, called a council of commanders and asked if they thought it practical to try to trap the Patrol between them and the third armada before it was fully organized. In the midst of it word came from Relay that heavy elements of the Earth fleet had been located in the vicinity of the Patrol and that the Patrol gave evidence of moving with Earth units in support.
